Punjab and Bangalore prevail

We had 2 magnificent nerve baiting finishes yesterday. Dravid's men trouncing the Deccan Chargers by 3 runs and Punjab winning by 9 runs.

The final over was bowled by experienced bowlers and they won the game for their teams. Kumble for Bangalore and Pathan for Punjab. If not for the great bowling of these bowlers, results could have been otherwise. This gives lie to the theory that T20 is a batter's game !

Piyush Chawla hit 21 in the last over to give Punjab a decent score, 178/6. Kolkota, despite David Hussy's 71 off 46 balls and Saha's 59 off 32, could only finish nine runs behind.

Praveen Kumar took 3/23 and bowled the Royal Challengers to victory. 20 runs were need in the last over and Sanjay Bangar hit 2 sixes and almost did a Shane Warne. But Kumble's experience proved too much for the Deccan Chargers !



Team P W L T NR PTS NRR
Delhi Daredevils 5 4 1 0 0 8 1.263
Chennai Superkings 5 4 1 0 0 8 0.743
Rajasthan Royals 5 4 1 0 0 8 0.525

The leading scorer in the IPL is R Sharma with 235, followed by Gambhir, 224 and Sehwag , 204. Sangakara is fourth with 203, Hayden with 189, McCullum with 186, Dhoni 172, Gilchrist 179, Yuvraj 168 and Mike Hussy 168 !

Delhi win by 8 wickets !

Chennai Super Stars looked depleted by the absence of Hussy, Hayden and Oram.

The Delhi bowlers McGrath, Asif and Company bowled beatifully to restrict the Super Kings to 169.

A glorious century partnership by Gambhir and Sehwag saw Delhi winning by 8 wickets. Sehwag hit 2 sixes off Goni in the second over and when the century partnership was hoisted, the match was almost over.

A great day for Sehwag & Co and Dhoni tasted his first defeat

Rajastan Royals and Kings XI win !

Shane Warne does it again. He won the toss and batted. Good innings by Asnodkar 60 Yousuf Pathan 55 and R Jadeja saw the Royals reach 196. Kolkotta went down fighting and they lost by 45 runs.

Shane Warne is proving to be the best captain in IPL. Many say he is the greatest captain Australia never had.

Ganguly hit 2 sixes and 4 fours in a good 39 ball effort. But the Knight Riders were all out for 151

Punjab won in the other match. Deccan could only muster 164/8, with R Sharma scoring 76 and Laxman 48. Gibbs failed and did Gilchrist. Afridi, V Rao and Bangar all failed. Shaun Marsh, the son of Geoff Marsh, went on to score 84 no and Jayawardene gave him solid support with 45 not out.

Shikhar Dhawan and Gambhir shine in Delhi's win

Delhi scored 191 runs and set a target of 192 for Dravid's team. Dravid's team failed again.

Magnificent batting by Dhawan and Gambhir saw them score 191. Gambhir is the fifth biggest scorer and his 86 was a revealation ! Dravid's men could not get the 192 !

Royal Challengers are going down. Chennai is on top at the moment. But with Hussey and Hayden gone, let us see how Chennai fares again.

Maiden win for Mumbai !

Shaun Pollock removed Ganguly and McCullum and Kolkotta were 6/2. Early wickets from which they never truly recoverd.

Laxmi Shukla scored 40 with 2 sixes and 4 fours. But the revealation was Debabrata Das who hit 5 fours and a six in his blistering 29, when Ganguly, McCullum and Ponting failed.

All that the Knight Riders could muster was 131. Mumbai were 25/3 and there were fears of a Mumbai loss, like the last four matches. But then Uthapp (37 n o ) and Bravo ( 64 no ) were involved in a 113 run partnership, which saw the Mumbai Indians home.

Here are the points of the 8 teams

M V L T P ( M-Match, V-Victory, L- Loss, T = Tie, P=Points)

Chennai 4 4 0 0 8
Rajasthan 4 3 1 0 6
Kolkotta 4 2 2 0 4
Delhi 3 2 1 0 4
Punjab 4 2 2 0 4
Hyderabad 4 1 3 0 2
Bangalore 4 1 3 0 2
Mumbai 5 1 4 0 2

Royal Challengers fail again !

We do not know what is wrong with the Royal Challengers, they have failed again.

Dravid was again out for a blob and Virat Kohli did not shine. The target was gettable, particulary after Waseem Jaffer and Ross Taylor scored half-centuries.

Dhoni won the toss and batted on a hostile pitch. Dale Steyn was hostile, bowling at 145 kph. Hayden was out to Zaheer and then Patel got out. Dhoni's blitzkreing was 65 out of 30 balls. Hussey scored 47 and the Chennai Super Kings finished at 178/5.

The Royal Challengers were on top at 102/1, when Jaffer, who had hit 2 sixes, got out. Then they lost quick wickets in succession. It looked like a procession of batsmen. RC failed again and were all out for 165 !

Punjab and Hyderabad win comfortably !

Sehwag out means half the battle lost. He was taken by Pathan and Lee took Dhawan, VRV Singh took 3-29 and the Dare Devils could only muster 158/8. Manoj Tiwari scored 39 . The Kings XI game plan worked well.


Simon Katich continued his great form with the bat. He scored 75 and got Man of the Match Award. Yuvraj was at his striking best ( 40 not out ) and he got a hug from Preity Zinta.

In the other match Laxman won the toss and fielded. The Mumbai Indians were 27/3. Shaun Pollock scored 31 and Abhishek Nair scored 34, blasting 3 sixes in the process.

The Deccan Chargers wanted 155 runs and they got it in style. Gilly blasted 10 sixes and nine fours in his 109 no and Laxman gave solid support in the massive score of 155 for none. This is the greatest partnership ever in the IPL. The massive crowd of 50 K had got their money's worth, as they saw one of the greatest innings in T20 from Gilchrist.